Miniaturized hearing aid receiver transducers as part of a complete hearing aid system small enough to be self contained within an ear-mounted hearing aid are well known. There is, however, a continuing effort to further reduce the size of the associated elements. In particular, the receiver and its associated power amplifier occupy a significant fraction of the total available volume of the hearing aid system, and efforts continue to reduce their size. It is known to incorporate a power amplifier into a receiver housing. One such integrated receiver is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,689,819. In this unit, the amplifier is placed completely outboard of the armature structure. In an effort to reduce the size of the housing, receiver units have also been fabricated having an armature cantilevered from an end wall with the amplifier disposed below the fixed end of the armature. This particular armature structure complicates assembly, and the overall design did not lend itself to achieving the desired minimum housing volume.
Another problem that arises during the manufacture of integrated receivers is that the relatively fragile output leads from the amplifier must be connected to relatively massive drive coil leads. It is not uncommon during manufacture to lose an expensive, almost completely assembled receiver because one of the amplifier leads is accidently broken during the attachment process.
The present invention is provided to solve these and other problems.